Read Online Lone Defender (Love Inspired Suspense) by Shirlee McCoy - Free Book Online

backtrack to the mesa, see if I can find our friends’ trail. If I do, it’ll give the police something to go on.”
    “No!” she shouted, loudly enough that the medic pressed a gentle hand to her shoulder.
    “You need to relax, Ms. Grady. You’ve been through a lot.”
    “I’m not leaving without—”
    But Jonas was already gone, slipping away before she could grab his hand and try to keep him from going.
    She struggled against the straps that held her in place, and the medic leaned close, looked in her eyes. “Ma’am, you’re going to have to calm down.”
    “You can’t leave Jonas behind.”
    “It’s his choice. Not ours. The sooner you settle down, the sooner we can get you to Phoenix and come back.” The medic’s tone was firm, but there was sympathy in his dark brown eyes.
    “But—”
    “Jonas Sampson is one tough son of a gun. He’s traveled this area more than any other person I know. You don’t have to worry about him. Just worry about yourself and getting healthy again. Now I’m going to hook you up to some fluids, try to get your fever down. You’ll feel better about everything when you’re not burning up.” He swabbed the inside of her elbow with alcohol, told her to hold still.
    She didn’t feel the pinch as the line was placed, felt nothing but numb dismay and scorching heat and the awful knowledge that she’d made it out of the desert, but that she’d left Jonas behind.
    Keep him safe, Lord. Please.
    The chopper lifted off, and Skylar’s world shifted, tilted, sideways and back and up and down, and she spun into a vortex of images and sounds. Desert and rain and caves and climbs. Guns and shadows. Tessa reaching for her, and Skylar reaching back. Light and darkness, and finally nothing, but silence. The velvety darkness she’d longed for seeping in, covering it all.
    Except for him.
    The knight.
    The hero.
    The man.
    Jonas, his words whispering in her ear.
    I was helpless to save either of them. I’m not helpless to save you.
    He’d proven his words.
    He’d saved her.
    But could he save himself?

SEVEN
    J onas hated hospitals.
    Hated the scent and sound and feel of them.
    The frantic energy that poured from the people that moved through the emergency room ebbed and flowed like the tide, tugging Jonas with it.
    If he let himself, he could fall into an emotional time warp, feel what he’d felt the night Gabriella was shot. See everything—his blood-soaked dress shoes, his stained-red hands hanging limply between his knees as he waited for news he knew would not be good.
    She’d been dead before the ambulance arrived at the scene. Probably dead before he’d pressed frantic hands over the blood spurting from her chest.
    A bullet straight to the heart.
    No way to save her.
    Nothing that could have been done.
    Those had been the doctor’s words, but Jonas had only heard his own recriminations.
    He’d moved Gabriella from Phoenix to New Mexico to pursue his dream of becoming a border patrol agent. In the end, his dream had killed her and their son. Time had healed some of his sorrow, but it hadn’t assuaged his guilt.

    He felt it acutely as he strode through the waiting room and approached the receptionist. “Excuse me—”
    “Go ahead and sign in. We’ll call you back in a few minutes,” she said without looking up, and he bit back impatience. It wasn’t her fault he’d been waylaid by the police as soon as he’d gotten off the helicopter. Not her fault he’d spent the past hour and a half explaining what had happened out in the desert.
    Not her fault that he was hungry, tired and ready to be done with the hospital.
    No one’s fault but his own that he’d allowed Kane to talk him into searching for Skylar.
    Talk him into it?
    Kane had asked. Jonas had said yes. Simple as that.
    He’d gotten the call three days ago, and, for the first time in years, Jonas had felt a buzz of excitement, a hum of adrenaline. He’d gone with it. Reported to search and rescue, asked